A Woman Who's Worthy- Murtagh
by The Author's Mighty Pen
Summary: Season 4, Episode 13 "A Man of Worth". Denied the details of what happened between Jocasta throwing whiskey in Murtagh's face and the next morning... another perspective on what happened in the night between. And the morning after.
1. A Man of Worth- Missing Scene

The drip of whiskey off his face could not distract him from her swift breathing. The slight sting where the liquid hit his eye could not pull his fingers from her arm to wipe it away. And no force on earth could prevent him from his goal when his eyes settled on her lips.

So he kissed her.

For a moment he feared the hand still holding her glass might take another swing in his direction. But with the valuable whiskey from her glass still dripping down his cheek and dampening his shirt there would be nothing left but the glass. And he knew what that kind of pain would be like, exploding over the cheek if the glass did not break. And if the glass did shatter then it would embed in his face and the whiskey would sting in open wounds.

But she did neither of those things.

That was Jocasta Mackenzie Cameron. Always doing the least expected thing. Always putting a fool off his step should he dare think he could outwit her. It was the Mackenzie in her that made her hard to predict. But it was the Cameron she adopted that kept her lips connected to his.

Vaguely, as if someone stuffed his ears with cotton, he heard the glass hit the rug and then her walking stick. Her hands held onto his arm, their awkward positioning making it difficult to allow their bodies to fully connect, and she tipped her head just enough to allow him better control of their kiss when his free hand held at her neck. One of her hands left his arm to hold his face, tracing up the length of his arm to find it, and he leaned into the hold.

There was no reason not to. Even with fifty years acquaintance there was little that could have prepared him for her expertise. And he was no first-timer himself but her skill far surpassed his wildest expectations.

Must have been her three previous husbands. A person learned a thing or two with practice. And given the grip she now had on his forearm, she was used to having her way.

Big houses did that to people: told them they were in control. But she only held to him for support, letting him guide the kiss with his fingers edging toward her hair. Hair he wanted to feel with his hands so his fingers could stream through it and use as a better guide. Hair that he remembered would blow in the wind when they were younger.

He never detested air so much as when he needed it to breathe. The tightening of her fingers on his arm were meant to continue holding her to him but his fingers massaged into her neck to ease whatever fear she might have of him leaving her. Their lips pulled apart but he bent his forehead to touch hers so he could breathe in time with her.

"I haven't done that in a very long time."

He laughed, fingers still stroking over her skin at her neck and through the fabric of her dress on her arm. "I've not enjoyed it half so well in a very long time."

"You're a much better kisser now than you were trying to turn my sister's head."

He raised his head, glaring slightly despite the fact she could not see it, and waited for her laugh to stop. "Oh aye? And how would you know how I kissed your sister?"

"She'd tell me about it." She gave another giggle. Not one like a child would give but the kind a woman used to laughing at men gives. But the kind of laugh that is not forced for an audience or derisive. The giggle of a pleasant memory. "She told me all about you."

"And what'd she have to say about it that's got your memory so sharp on the subject after thirty years?"

"Just that you were in earnest and she'd hate to break your heart." She sighed, "She loved you, you know."

"She loved Brian Fraser more." He slackened his hold slightly to adjust the position of his hand on her arm so they could stand more in-step with each other. "And I don't regret that she did."

"I don't either." Her hand at his cheek brushed into the whiskers on his face, following the grain of it to wend her way from his jaw to his cheekbone. "If she'd loved you more then I wouldn't have you now."

"Do you have me Jo?" He laid a series of light kisses from her forehead toward her ear, relishing the tiny shivers each one brought. "Do I have ye?"

"Ye've had me since I was fifteen years old, Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser." She clutched tighter to his arm and his jaw, resting her head on his chest.

"I thought you never liked me." He rested his cheek along her hair. "I thought I was a dark cloud."

"You're my dark cloud." She loosened her hand a bit on his arm, "Don't you know how to tell when a woman's not being honest?"

"I've not made the mistake in thinking I ken anything about women for a long time."

"Then I'll tell you." Her cheek slid along his so she could whisper in his ear. "I want you to take me to bed."

"Then I'd best get on with it." He grinned, kissing her cheek as he slipped his arm under hers. "I would hate to keep you waiting."

"You've kept me waiting for thirty years."

"I'll not keep you waiting for much longer."

They walked the stairs together, her hand holding tight over his on her arm and their fingers intertwined. He kept his arm tight on her walking stick, wedged as it was between his body and arm, and followed her pace on the stairs. She did not slow her pace as she guided them to her doors.

Her hands separated from his, holding the knobs she found with delicate fingers slipping over the wood, and paused. The cry of Brianna's baby startled them both to the point Jocasta's hand left the knob. He noticed the tremble, the flutter of shock and surprise and a bit of trepidation, before covering her hands with his. Guiding them to the door, they turned it together and stepped into the dimness.

Her house slaves, as detestable as the practice might be, knew their jobs. Low burning lamps sat on two tables near the corners of the room gave a golden glow to the blue darkness leaking between the small gaps in the drapes and lit the room with shadows and dashes of light. She reached for his hand and he gave it in a moment, following her practiced steps to the bed. The walking stick slipped from his arm as she propped it against the chair next to the bed and he waited for her to turn to him.

In the darkness he could not see her eyes. Could not follow the mischievous glint of Mackenzie there that shone even when her eyesight failed her. And how he wished to see her eyes. To lose himself in the gray-blue that had faded since they were bright and naïve so long ago but were no less intelligent and wicked. No less calculating and aware. Eyes he wished could meet his.

"I've not done this in a long time."

Her voice broke through his thoughts and he put his hands aside her face. Hands she sank into feeling as he recalled her memory of his hands. Hands she noticed and watched when they were younger and he was a fool. If he had her then… No, that Jocasta was not the woman before him.

That Jocasta loved to paint and weave flowers in her hair. That Jocasta followed her sister and brothers around like a dependable but uninvited puppy. That Jocasta had married three Camerons.

This Jocasta wanted him. Wanted him with his rough hands, his lifetime of hard experience, and his brooding expressions. Wanted him to take her to her bed.

"You'll ken the steps just fine." He let his thumbs stroke over her cheeks, noting the sigh of calm that settled her shoulders. "It's just like any dance. It comes back as you practice and perform."

"Have you-"

"Not in a long time." He held still as her hands found his face again. "But I'm willing to let you lead if you like."

"I think you're supposed to lead." Even in the shadows he saw her smile. "Unless you dance differently than I do."

"I still dance just fine." With a tilt of the head, their lips met again.

The scrap of fabric holding her hair in place tugged out with the sound of a pin or two tinkling on the wooden floor. His fingers fumbled with the laces of her corset but she covered his hands with hers and took over the knots as his hands returned to her jaw. She focused on her laces and he focused on her mouth.

Before, in her parlor, their lips met and they sucked the air from one another. They had gone no further in their hesitancy and trepidation. Now, with her encouraging whimpers and a moan at the back of her throat, he tightened his grip on her neck and jaw to send his tongue skittering over her lower lip. She opened immediately and he let his tongue sweep inside the space.

If he could, he would kiss her forever. Practice had perfected her and each reaction to every invitation only burned hotter inside him. Through all of her skirts and layers there was no possible way she could tell what she did to him but when her hands finished with her corset, now hanging looser on her body, they passed across the front of his breeches.

For a moment he feared her reaction but her hands only tangled into his hair and tugged him closer to her. The leather thong holding his hair back snapped somewhere to the floor and they both took their pleasure in carding through the hair now available to them. His fingers twisted and tugged in her hair while hers speared and yanked to try and wrestle control of their kiss. But he broke the kiss and helped her escape her corset.

It thumped to the ground and their both took to their next obligations. The buttons on his waistcoat loosened one at a time and a struggle with his necktie fluttered the end of the fabric in his face. He blew it away to take another kiss from her as her scarf and petticoats dropped to the floor. Her hands needed to manage the bustle and soon his breeches landed in a pile atop his shoes and stockings.

They stumbled through the mess of their clothing, his arms wrapping around her to maintain their balance, and she sighed into his hold. Her fingers traced his lips and followed the line of his beard to his hair before bringing their mouths back together. She controlled this kiss and he allowed it so his hands could measure her through her shift. Track the way she groaned and keened when he felt over her breasts and then sink into him when he let hands knead at her ass. Even the temptation to sway together did nothing to stop him feeling what he could of her through the clothing they had left.

He fumbled to find the hem of her shift, runching the fabric in his hands to pull it up from her ankles, and only paused when her hands landed on his. Their kiss broke, their chests bumping into one another as they tried to slow the thunder of their hearts. His fingers loosened, losing a bit of his hold on the material, and waited for her to speak.

"I've not done this in a long time."

"You've said."

"No one's seen me naked outside my maids and they… well." She teethed at her lip and he ran his thumb over it. "I'm not young anymore."

"Neither am I." He took her hand and helped lift his shirt over his head. He shivered in the exposure but laid her hands in a trace of the scars dotting his skin. "We're different people now than if we'd rolled in the hay of the Mackenzie stables fifty years ago."

"I wouldn't want that."

"Neither would I." He brought her hand to his mouth, kissing her fingers. "I want the version of you standing in front of me. The version of you I know is older, grayer, and wiser than the girl with flying brown hair."

"You noticed?"

"I've got two eyes haven't I?" He smiled and stepped closer so she gasped when she felt him. "And I want you."

"I ken that well."

"Then perhaps you'd be kind enough to let me do something about it."

Her fingers left his hand and he continued pulling her shift over her head. Her hair fell from it like a waterfall and he lost himself for a moment in weaving his fingers in it. But following the trail led him to her back. The smooth expanse beckoned him and he ran his hands over her.

She sighed into his hold, raising her hands to his chest to hold herself there as his calloused hands sent shivers through her body. But they only matched the shivers she sent through him when her fingers slipped and skidded through the hair on his chest. Hair she followed to him abdomen at the same moment he let his hands settle on the globes of her ass. They let out sounds at the same time and he could not wait another moment before kissing her.

Maneuvering carefully, he found the edge of the bed and urged her to sit at the edge. He leaned over her, hands shifting from her ass to her legs, spreading them enough for him to stand in the space between as they continued their kiss with all the fervor they could muster. A fervor which hand her hands back in his hair as he lowered himself slowly to his knees before her. She whined as he pulled away from her lips but her nails only dug into his scalp when he left a trail of kisses from her jaw to her breasts before continuing lower.

Her legs quivered on either side of him, accepting the bearded kisses he left along her skin before pressing toward his goal. And when her hands grabbed back at the sheets and she lay back, he licked at her. She cried out, fingers tightening in his hair and the sheets, and he continued.

Each movement of his tongue and fingers left her trembling and gasping around him. The gentle pulse of blood moving through her body echoed around him to match the beat of his own heart thundering like horses in his ears. And when he slipped his fingers inside her, all he could hear was them.

The taste of her, the scent surrounding him, and her eventual release were all he desired. He licked over her to finish, sliding his fingers free of her still-clinging muscles, and gave a final kiss to the bundle of nerves that proved her undoing. Even the ache in his knees and the twinge in his back were nothing compared to the flushed expression he could read all over her face.

She fumbled her hand in his hair to bring his mouth to hers and sucked the taste of herself from him. When dark spots blinked at the corner of his eyes, she gasped away from the kiss and gave a small laugh. He frowned, his hands on either side of her to hold himself above her lax body, and finally spoke.

"And what, may I ask, is so funny to ye?"

"You couldn't have kenned that when you were younger." She shook her head, eyes closed as if seeking to prolong the sensation that ran through her and bask in the wonder of it. "I never would've imagined it."

"But I ken it now." He dotted kisses along her neck, sliding her further onto the bed so he could climb onto the creaking mattress. "And you don't have to imagine it."

"No I do not." One of her hands moved from his hair to his chest, sneaking lower and lower as a smile bloomed on her face. "And I'd rather not imagine something else."

"What might that be?" He dragged his chin over her skin to kiss around her breast.

"What it might be like to have you inside me." She tugged his head up from her breast so breathe at his lips. "Feck me."

It only took a moment to position them both before he slid forward. They rocked together, seeking the perfect angle, and finally he reached the end. Taking a moment there, forcing air past his constricting pipes to fill his starving lungs, he pulled back to thrust back into her.

Her head went back into the pillows, arching her back to leave her breasts and abdomen bending toward him. Taking full advantage, he sent her crying out when his lips wrapped around her and sucked hard. The scrape of her nails against his skull and the raking of them over his shoulders and back only spurred him faster. His hand found her thigh and lifted it higher to thrust even deeper.

A tilt of her hips left her nearly shrieking and he let her hands hold him to her while his free hand left a massage at her breast to snake between them. He found the nerves and pressed in time with the rhythm of his thrusts to leave her digging into his skin and losing her cries as the air between them thinned. And when she came again, sagging in his arms, he let himself go. Allowed himself to follow her over the edge that left such a beautiful expression on her face.

With a slight tilt, he landed on his side next to her and she shifted toward him. Her fingers, leaving their bruising grip on his sides and ass, wandered up his body to touch his face. "I wish I could see you."

"A sweaty mess with hair whiter than snow and that dour expression?"

She swatted toward him, her palm thumping on his chest, and laughed. "No, to see you when you come."

"Why's that?"

"Because you could see me." She sighed, fingers absentmindedly stroking over his skin. "And I'd want to see the look on your face. That satisfaction."

"My satisfaction is naught to yours." He dipped his head, kissing her shoulder. "You're the one who wanted me to feck you."

"And you did it very well." She slipped closer to him. "You won't leave, will you?"

"I'll have to, eventually." He wrapped an arm around her, enamored with the soft skin at her back he could explore now that they were sated. "I've got to get back and I'd only bring trouble if I stay."

"Maybe I'd like trouble."

"Not this kind of trouble." His fingers danced toward her ass, massaging there until she groaned. "And I wouldn't put you through that Jo."

"You were always a gentleman."

"My mother'd roll in her grave if I were otherwise."

"Mine's rolling in hers." She snorted, her fingers dancing lower over his chest. "Fornicating at my age."

"I think it's better at this age." He ran his hand over her thigh, pulling it up over his hip to better sculpt the details of it. "We ken what we're doing now."

"I've had three husbands to ken what I'm doing." She tried to laugh but lost it in a gasp as his fingers found her, still wet, and sank into her. "You can't mean-"

"I don't think you're finished." His other hand rested over her heart and he bent his head to kiss gently over her face. "You're heart's racing, her body's trembling, and the quiver of your leg over my hip is the same a horse gets when it wants to run."

"Maybe I want to run." Her neck arched as he added another finger to stroke inside her. "Maybe I'm trying to escape."

"If you meant that, you'd already have run." He spoke against her lips. "Like when I kissed you in the parlor."

"What?"

"If you didn't want me to kiss you, you wouldn't have let me." He took her lips a moment and then broke away. "You're not the only one who's waited a long time to realize and accept what they want."

"And what do you want?"

"I thought I told you," He put his thumb on her nerves and she moaned a gentle, rolling finish. "I want you, Jo."

Her hands tangled in his hair and brought his mouth to hers again, sinking her tongue deep into the caverns of his mouth as he sank into her again. They moved together, more gently and as close at they could get to one another, until he came. She twisted and writhed slightly until he guided one of her hands between them. But she proved her prowess and managed to bring herself over again with a soft cry in his ear.

Separating for a second time, he lay back on the pillows and opened his arm to her. She slid along it, her hand resting over his heart as her head rested on his chest. His fingers pulled gently through her hair until her soft breathing filled the room. With a bit of wrangling he managed to get them under the sheets and lay back to close his eyes in the silence and peace of the night.


	2. A Man of Worth- Follow Up Scene

He opened his eyes and tried to move his arm. All pins and needles as if he slept on it. But, when he blinked to take in the light, he noted his arm stretched away from him. He had not slept on it. Someone else had.

She shifted and sighed, her fingers intertwining with those that were nothing but dead stumps. "Good morning."

"It'd be better if I could feel my arm."

"Am I-" She sat up and let her fingers trace along his arm. "Did I-"

"Aye, ye did lass." He twisted his body around, letting his other hand sweep over the sheets covering her body to slip under them and find her leg. "But I'm sure all can be forgiven."

"Can it now?" She tipped forward and he noted the glint to her sightless eyes. "And how exactly could it all be forgiven?"

"I'm sure you could ken it for yourself."

Their lips met and her hands, both of them mobile and functional while his fingers twitched and buzzed with the pinpricks of sensation restoring blood flow to his extremities, wove into his hair. The tug there, pulling at his scalp, had him moving closer to her. Never before had something been so simple and yet exciting.

He tried the same motions, with his functional hand, and soon they both moaned into one another as the tug on their hair sent shivers through both of their bodies. Shivers that only grew and worked like a current until they shifted and tried to get closer to one another. But when Murtagh attempted to move his still-tingling arm, it flopped to the bed and barely missed smacking Jocasta in the side. In that moment he was exuberantly grateful she could not see.

With only one good arm, he abandoned her hair for her breasts. She gave a whimper at the gentle pinches and tweaks to test her skin before breaking their kiss to fill her tightening lungs. A tightening that thrust her chest toward him and allowed Murtagh's freed mouth to close over her other breast. He may only have one hand, but he knew how to use his mouth.

But Jocasta Cameron was not one for idleness. She did not shy away from his touch or his active mouth but shifted herself forward to trap his thickening erection between them. An act he might have considered an accident but for the way she then ground against him. The rolling of her hips pressed him against her so he rubbed over that delicate bundle of nerves she needed stroked for her pleasure.

A bundle of nerves his now responding fingers could tease.

He considered for a moment, as his now functioning hand sloppily gripped at her hip and ass in an effort to regain the totality of function, that such a venture might put him in danger of further arousing himself. Not that he needed it with the way Jocasta had it all well in hand… sort of actually using her hands which still carded through his hair or raked over his shoulders. But he took the risk all the same.

It was worth it just for the cry that came from the back of her throat. The unapologetic release of her pleasure as his touch. He moved delicately, replacing his deft hand at her breast with his fuzzing fingers so he might navigate the fine line between her pleasure and his. And those keening whimpers only increased when he managed to slip a finger inside her while keeping his thumb pressing insistently at her nerves.

She shattered over him. He wanted to burn that image onto his brain for the rest of his life. Her head thrown back, the line of her neck exposed, and the rush of pleasure running over her skin in rosy blushes and goose-flesh shivers. All signs that he brought out in her.

But in his moment of contemplation, she broke his serenity. Her knees tightened against his hips and her breasts slid over his chest. Her rise brought him back to the nature of the task at hand but before he could move or respond her hands were on either side of his face. Even with her eyes not meeting his, the dilation of her pupils took his breath away.

Right before whatever air remained in his lungs drove out in a rush when she sank down on him.

Jocasta Cameron did not need eyesight. She did not need anything but a direction and a desire. With those two things she managed to control their encounter with all the vigor and athleticism of a trained equestrian.

And Murtagh had no reservations about serving as her horse.

Three husbands taught her more than most women knew about movement. She knew how to vary her strokes, matching rises and falls that would tire out her thighs and knees with rolls of her hips. Her hands knew their optimal positions to support her motions when she took him as deeply inside her as she could manage or when she wanted to hold him just at the very edge of her clinging folds. And when he thought he might have a moment to thrust deeply inside her, she rocked against him and swiveled to the side. The gyrating motion rubbed him along a new part of her and she angled her hips to take him again but in a way that had her huffing for breath.

It was the most beautiful thing to watch in the lightening of morning. The sunlight sneaking between her sheer curtains to play over her skin gave her a radiance he would never forget. She might not see it but he could. And the vision of Jocasta taking her pleasure from him like a goddess afire in the morning light was all he needed.

She did not cede control and he did not ask for it. His hands on her hips or breasts or ass were nothing but guideposts for himself. They anchored him to her motions and soon he learned her rhythm. Each motion and movement bearing a tick and a trigger before it echoed into him. And when he learned them he pulled them to move together. She still led and he followed, but now he followed like a dance instead of a tripping fool.

Coming together, she rested her forehead against his. They both just breathed, the thunder of their hearts slowing until there was nothing but the sounds of them breathing as one. Matched in their very souls as they tried to find solid ground together.

Jocasta moved away first, leaving him with the sheets pulled up to his waist, and worked her shift over her head. He watched as she reached confidently for a dressing gown on the chair and took a static pose before the window while wrapping herself in the silk. But even as she stood there he could not bear the distance. Soon other distances would, by necessity, separate them.

He did not want to rush that inevitability before its time.

"Come back to bed." She resisted, sourcing propriety and her household between her queries of his plans. Plans he did not know beyond needing to go back to the life that gave him purpose. Back to the life that was his. Back to a life that he wanted to deliver the same words he finally gave her, "Let it wait."

Her satisfied smile, the smile of a well-versed woman in matters of the bedroom, dropped her dressing gown. She climbed confidently back over the bed and met his soft kiss. A kiss he broke to trail over her shoulder. A shoulder he now had to work to expose with the shift in the way.

But she proved adept with it. Her hands tugged it slowly to her hips and then circled his wrist to bring him to touch her again. Touch her until she shuddered and let out a soft cry into his shoulder.

Jocasta moved, as if expecting that was all, but Murtagh pressed her gently to the mattress. His mouth trailed her as if trying to use it instead of his eyes to memorize her through the shift. The shift he now used to tease and torment her as the fabric abraded and taunted her sensitive skin. He sucked at her breasts until the material damped and clung to her. The hem proved just abrasive enough to rasp against her delicate bundle of nerve so his tongue was a blessing.

But only for a moment.

He left her writhing and crying out as he finished licking over her. Finished delving his fingers deep inside her to find that spot that had her hips raising and her thighs clenching around his head. Finished leaving her so satisfied her eyes could only flutter closed. Finished giving her the rosy blush to her skin so he could give her more.

Entering her held all the familiarity of an ancient practice with all the novelty of a wonderfully new experience. Her hands clutched at him, finding his hair and sending shudders of pleasure through him at her touch. Her knees tightened at his hips before her thighs opened wider to allow him to drive into her further. And when her nails raked over his back the slow and sultry attempt to convince her to let it all wait was lost.

His pace increased as if he fell victim to a frenzy. But each one of her sounds spurred him onward. The arch of her back, the toss of her head, and the clutch of her fingers in mimic of the tight strangle of her velvet sheath around him worked him to a frenetic pace that left neither of them with breath. When she came again, all gasps and cries, he could do nothing but follow her.

They lay together afterward, holding one another close as the scent of breakfast finally wafted toward them. Each sighed and turned for a kiss before moving. It took no words to realize the little slice of the universe they made for themselves was shattered. This moment would only exist in their memories now.

This moment would never happen again.


End file.
